1. Field
The following description relates to an image processing technology, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for processing a light field image that is acquired and processed using a mask that spatially modulates a light field.
2. Description of the Related Art
Imaging systems that view only one image by taking a picture once are commercially available. Recently, research has been conducted on a plenoptic camera that may recombine the focus of the image. The plenoptic camera is also called a light field camera, and may use a microlens array (in general, a lenticular lens array) to capture information on 4-dimensional (4D) light fields for a scene. The plenoptic camera may provide users with a re-focusing function by changing a focus plane after taking a picture. In doing so, the plenoptic camera may generate a view variation in which the user experiences a view of a scene from various angles.
However, in the light field data acquisition method, the angular data corresponding to the direction of light and the spatial data corresponding to the number of sensor pixels may be acquired at the same time. Therefore, the method has a problem in that the resolution becomes deteriorated as much as the angular data. For example, when the required angular resolution size of a main lens is 12×12 (i.e., 144), the resolution of the acquired image is 1/144 times the resolution corresponding to the entire sensor pixels.